Hello. New guy here with a quick question.

Hello all.
I recently purchased the SB 9A pictured in the thumbnails below.

Since getting the machine, I have gone through inspection, lubrication and some adjustment as well as replacing worn belts, and cleaning up the electrical and controls.

The lathe seems mostly complete, and functionality tests are all positive for speed changes and carriage feed.

Also, I am in the process of making some tooling purchases, like the QC tool post shown.

I have a copy of How To Run A Lathe and an early edition of Machinist and Tool Makers Handy Book.

My hands-on experience level with machine tools is pretty basic, but do have a few of the rudimentary operations figured out.

One specific question I have for the forum is tooling related. What is a suitable size of HSS cut off/parting tool to purchase for my Phase II AXA tool post and cut off tool holder?

I would like a c/o tool suitable for lighter steel work, and the occasional intermediate sized pieces.

Thanks in advance - Paul

For the QC post it looks like you have, you can use square tool stock up to 1/2". However, I recommend that you consider stock that's 5/16" or 3/8" square. They're both very rigid and you'll find that they grind faster than 1/2" stock. I'd also recommend that you consider High Speed Steel with something like 5% cobalt added since it will wear longer than plain HSS. Some of the imported tool steel products are good, some are horrible. You might save yourself some frustration by using tool steel sourced in the USA. It can be expensive but worth it in the long run.

At this stage in your machinist career, I'd stay away from the insert tooling. It's very tempting but small SB lathes are not really set up to take advantage of the insert tooling and their geometries. Learn how to use HSS tools and how to grind them first. After that, you can go "adventuring" after insert tooling if you must.

For the cut-off or "parting" blade, I'd start off with 3/32" wide stock. 1/16" blades waste less material but they can be fragile if you're not careful and a shattered parting blade will send pieces of tool steel into places on your face you'd rather not have them. Again, go with a high-quality source and I prefer the "T" shaped blades to the tapered blades. The tapered blades are hard to get to sit straight in the Phase II holder sometimes.

Figure on spending a few $$ for quality tooling. Have fun and be careful!!

I hate the design of the Phase II cutoff/parting holder....it holds the blade at an angle, which means every time you sharpen it, you need to loosen the set screw and reset the blade to center because you've shortened it. It's REALLY critical to get all your tooling perfectly on center, there's videos online for a simple tool to make, I like the one by Joe Pieczynski on YouTube (he's got many excellent videos from beginner to advanced).

If I'm parting smaller diameters/thinner wall parts I use the AR Warner cutoff/groover tooling.

I see specialized tool holders sold for the thinner cut off tools. Do these holders address the shortcomings with the quick change tool holders wrt holding thinner cut off tools?

Couldn't agree more about the suckiness of the ph2 parting holder...I have gone on about that forever....Amazon has real Aloris parting holder for 75 bucks and it's worth every cent...then if you like you can use ANY standard blade and also get a retrofit insert holder for it too...then you don't even run into the issue tobnpr mentioned with regard to resharpening.

Honestly though for less than 1" diameter just grind them out of 1/2" HSS squares....better and stiffer than everything else IMO.